It's been a problem for a long time with which I've had first hand experience. Years ago when I was in college a collector called my parent's house after being rebuked by me and convinced them to pay off the "debt" by appealing to their parental instincts. The very next day they called back asking for more stating it wasn't "paid in full". This despite the fact that they had told my parents the "debt" would be satisfied upon the requested payment. It was literally an outright lie, no room for interpretation, no grey area.

These people are the scum of the earth and I hate to say it, but all the misfortune the perpetrators suffered in the article is well deserved (in my candidly vengeful opinion).

This may not be the soundest advice, but IMO once you've gone to collections, the credit damage is done, and it's not worth paying them off strictly for the risk that they may be scamming you. It's sad that that murky corny of the industry has been allowed to continue harassment of consumers relatively unabated. I see people in this thread getting down-voted for calling out the FTC and other agencies for lack of action, but they are dead on.

If one man in his free time during the evenings can bring down a $1bn+ fraudulent operation, how can you possibly think the government is doing enough? Perhaps Andrew should be hired by the FBI.